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 2009 was yet another exciting year. In many ways.

'Delay' turned out to be the toughest competitor this year. It made it hard to predict business. read more >>

The San Francisco Bay Area is known worldwide as the epicenter of technological innovation. Now, to the list that runs from electronics to computers, software and biotechnology, one can add a stunning innovation in journalism. read more >>

WoodWing's new iPhone Newsreader allows publishers to open new publishing channels on the iPhone. Publishers can brand the iPhone Newsreader and offer it through Apple's App Store.

Conde Nast is releasing an iPhone AP for GQ. The big news is the Audit Bureau of Circulation is allowing the $2.99 Apple Store download to count toward the circulation. read more >>

As always Adobe MAX was an inspiring event with lots of information and inspiration. Here are some highlights.

Flash on the iPhone
Despite all the hype about the announcement that Flash will be running on the iPhone, I can't help feeling quite dissapointed. However happy some will be that it is now finally possible to get their Flash games out in the app store, the fact that we now have to specifically compile our applications to a native application is a just a step back. read more >>

Next week at IfraExpo we will launch our native iPhone news reader.

A branded iPhone App is now within reach of any publisher. We'll take care of the branding, grabbing the content and making it available through the iTunes App Store. We can't make it any easier  read more >>

Asia has been on the forefront of many technologies and there is a great willingness to experiment with all things new. One of those interesting technologies is the so called 2-dimensional (2D) barcodes and its implementation in the publishing space. read more >>

A couple of weeks ago I met with a company that is in the process of starting a new news organization. It was a very encouraging meeting, because it proves that there is still life in the news media, and there are still people that believe so strongly in it, that they are willing to invest millions of dollars in new initiatives. The focus of this organization is somewhat niche oriented but nevertheless very very interesting…. read more >>

Sure big, metro newspapers in the U.S. are experiencing challenges in the current economic climate. But in the smaller newspaper market things aren’t bad at all.

From an August 9th Associated Press story:
Small is beautiful (and successful) for newspapers “Smaller newspapers have been defying the ominous trend, based on a recent study of the finances at 125 U.S. newspapers of different sizes by the Inland Press Association, a trade group. read more >>

In a recent New York Times piece looking back after 10 years on fabled launch party for Talk Magazine, David Carr mentions in passing that in those 1999 boom times star magazine writers were being paid $5 per word.* At that rate, one of those stars could toss off a thousand words in the morning and make $5,000 before trotting off to lunch at the Four Seasons. No wonder the top journalists are mourning the passing of an era! read more >>

Our development team is working very hard to finalize the next release of our Publishing System Enterprise 6.5, so let's shed some light on what's coming. read more >>

CMSWire published Interview - Drupal, WoodWing and How Web Publishers Can Survive based on an interview I had with them recently.

Nice story :-)

  read more >>

Did you see this report?

It is PriceWaterhouseCoopers' prediction for the entertainment and media market.

They predict a remaining weak 2010 and a slow growth in 2011 in terms of consumer spending, hence advertising.

But even more interesting I found their statement about the need for media companies for "...greater transparency and accuracy over audience metrics which together with accountability for ad results, is becoming a “must have” in this new media world. ..." read more >>

While we're working on Enterprise 6.5, Content Station is taking a turbo boost. In July we'll release the third functional update of Content Station: version 6.3.

Using Adobe's Flex to develop Content Station allows us to to move much quicker compared to clients built in legacy UI programming languages such as C++ and Java. This combined with our vision and ambition turns Content Station development in a blast read more >>

When I first heard about Twitter, I wondered why anyone would want to know what I was doing in 140 characters or less. People posting comments about their breakfast choices or what they're watching on TV? Who cares about that? My first impression was that it was nothing more than a fad waiting to die a quick death.

When I delved into the world of Twittering, though, I discovered that some of my favorite newspapers were using it to great effect. I was receiving "Tweets" throughout the day from these publications - headlines of top stories, updates of breaking news and more. It's fast, informative and useful. read more >>

In the fast changing world of the internet the mobile phone is becoming an increasingly important device with the advent of mobile phones with large screens, like Apple’s iPhone. Thus, browsing the web on a mobile phone has become a much more pleasant experience. The bigger screens of the newest generation mobile phones enables advertising to look much more visual and attractive. read more >>

Wouldn't it be cool to publish directly from your Publishing System to social media such as Twitter and Facebook?

Welcome to Enterprise 6 :- read more >>

WoodWing organised its third Publishing Conference in Athens. Looking back and trying to be as unbiased as possible, I can only conclude that the event was a great success.

A significant amount of information was shared about products, technology, use cases and about third party products. The community expanded. New partnerships were initiated and new contacts were made. Experiences around the world were shared and opportunities were explored. read more >>

Of course it is not easy to justify travel cost these days.

Travel is the easiest budget to cut. When the results drop, it is almost expected as being the first measure taken, no explanation necessary.

But cutting your travel budget will not make your company flourishing again!

There is only one way to recover from times like these and that is innovation! Address new markets, find new ways of working, adapt things that worked for others, dare to think differently.

Going to a conference is still the ultimate way to gather ideas. Being away from operations, being among peers, talking to people and sharing experiences works for a vast majority of people.

Funny enough, I must admit, for me personally it is not the speaker's subject specifically that gives me new ideas. It is the setting that triggers new thoughts, creates different associations. read more >>

Recent events have convinced me that:

a) opportunity cost is the largest component of Total Cost of Ownership
b) "vaporware" (= delay in delivery of claimed functionality) is the biggest source of of opportunity cost
c) the opportunity cost can swamp other cost components

The formal definition of opportunity cost  is more than a little opaque, so let's be specfic: In content publshing, the opportunity cost of selecting one vendor is the difference in your economics between what you experience with one vendor and what would have happend with the vendor you didn't select.

Case study:  the effect of delay in delivery

A textbook publisher chooses between an established Solution A and a forthcoming Solution B. After a corporate review, B is selected on the basis of prototypes of forthcoming technology that show special functionality. These prototypes mask the true state of readiness.  Delays follow, and the Solution B rollout comes much later than planned. read more >>

A couple of years ago all newspapers and most magazine publishers talked about convergence and hired expensive consultants to help them develop plans for how to implement a convergent strategy... but what happened?

During my first visit to the media center in Tampa I was utterly impressed, I had entered a new world that was going to revolutionize journalism as we knew it, and for all time change the dynamics of publishing, this new thing was called convergence. On-line, radio, TV and newspaper journalism under the same roof blurring the boundaries of where does journalism start and where does it end. We saw newspaper journalist doing TV spots, and we saw TV journalists with engagement doing on-line features, all very very impressive. read more >>

Most of the grim news you hear in the newspaper market revolves around major metro newspapers. Falling print circulation and their transformation from a print-only to an online world. The ensuing scramble to replace lost print revenue with online revenue.

But the battle for diversity is not just taking place online with the major mastheads. Newspapers of all types and sizes are also looking to other print opportunities and online efforts to diversify their footprint in the community.

Michigan has become an epicenter for this battle. In Detroit, the two major daily broadsheets have moved from daily home delivery to a three-day delivery schedule. The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News are concentrating most of their efforts online.
read more >>

Speaking with customers and prospects I have seen that many of them understand the concept of brand oriented publishing, but still have a hard time to move away from publication thinking.

In the past decade most successful print titles have launched websites, mostly using the same name as their print sisters. So isn't that brand oriented publishing?

It could be, but often you see that 2 different worlds are created, each having their own teams writing the content, with each having their own editor in chief. If that's the case I don't consider that brand oriented publishing, this is more like re-using the brand name on a different publication. I know that writing for the web is different from writing for print and the same counts for mobile or Twitter. I also know that technical skills for print, web and mobile are different.

But that's not a reason to have separated teams: writing content is also a different skill than layouting pages but they still can work together for a single publication. read more >>

Having an internal IT department? Why is it that hardly no one speaks positive about internal IT? They are slow, they don't understand the business, they are more expensive than the market and they aren't supportive.

Of all companies I visited in let's say, the last 5 years, I didn't came across one where the business praised IT for their pro-active, supportive and customer-oriented contribution. Of course, delivering services is often an ungrateful task, but the overall criticism IT receives is striking.

The reason may be obvious. Being responsible for IT you find yourself in an interesting dilemma. Corporate wants the IT-cost to drop, the business wants the services to improve. An almost impossible combination, causing internal fights, often won by corporate, resulting in even less responsive IT departments. The users unhappy again.

And suddenly there is SaaS, or the latest: Cloud computing. And things get really interesting. IT costs are dropping, no capital expenditure, services are delivered by specialists and deployment is done quicker than ever before. IT staff is reduced and Nicholas Carr got right, "IT doesn't matter" read more >>

On February 28th, they turned off the lights for good at Denver’s # 2 daily, the Rocky Mountain News. The Seattle Post Intelligencer may not make it through March. The San Francisco Chronicle is “on the bubble”.

Does this mean the end of newspapers in the USA, or, as some would have us believe, the end of news?

Well, I think it is just a bit more complex. Let’s start with newspapers. The New York Times is not going away, nor is the Wall St. Journal, and probably not the Washington Post. But I would not be surprised to see almost all of the next tier of urban metros succumb in the next 24 to 48 months. read more >>

In recent years publishing companies around the world have invested a lot in developing their on-line presence. However, technological and reader behavioral developments seem to have outpaced many publishers in their quest into the new media space.

Many publishers are still afraid to give unfettered access to their content or have no clear philosophy regarding what kind of content to put where and when. But the rapid advance of internet usage, also on mobile devices, has given their existing and potential readers an unbridled selection of (free) news sources to choose from. And it has given advertisers plenty of viable alternatives on which to spend their precious money to reach their desired audiences. So it is of paramount importance for publishers to take stock and improve the existing web presence and to develop a credible and attractive mobile presence. read more >>

From where I sit in my office in Detroit, Michigan I have a clear view of the economic downturn and its impact on newspapers. The two metropolitan dailies, Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, are changing to become more competitive in a 24 hour news cycle. They recently announced a move to three days a week home delivery, pushing most of their daily effort online.

Where there is challenge there is opportunity and the two dailies are getting a lot of attention for their online initiatives. With these adjustments theirs newsrooms and coverage remain strong.

Recent events in Detroit prove the online publishing model works. The daily newsrooms are using their web site to break news online and providing coverage you could not provide in a print product.

read more >>

Since its inception Enterprise (formerly known as Smart Connection Enterprise) has been a very flexible solution. When we started with the design of the first version of Enterprise, released in 2004, we had quite a few goals: scalability, easy to install, deploy and maintain, open standards, be able to sell Enterprise in pieces to OEM customers and give our business partners the ability to customize the system without involvement of the core development team.

Obviously it helped that this wasn't our first or second system, so we could use all the experience of the past, going back to the late eighties. And we had a fair bit of luck, we picked technologies that turned out to be winners. We still remember the early discussions we had about why on earth we selected PHP or MySQL... But over the past years, while big players like Sun and IBM were embracing these technologies, people have been complimenting us for our choices...

With Enterprise 6 we're bringing our flexibility to a new level. On the server side we have introduced a plug-in framework that is making it easier than ever to extend or integrate the system. The modularity with these PHP-based plug-ins makes sharing and deployment of customizations and integrations much easier than before. We can imagine a whole new market of Enterprise plug-ins, let's see...
read more >>

It is with great pleasure that we present to you the new WoodWing Blog.

We want to interact with you as much as possible. There is so much we'd like to share, there is so much we'd like to hear your opinion about. Especially today, having a market situation that requires an excellent understanding of the demands of our customers, our business partners and our potential customers. This blog is the place to share that kind of information.

WoodWing products are being used by a wide audience and we'd like to address you all, publishers of magazines, books, newspapers, and catalogs. Corporate publishers, editors, IT, production and online specialists. Business partners, technology partners, consultants, customers to be, and also our competitors. read more >>